US District Judge Lewis Babcock upheld Colorado's ban on smoking in indoor public places Friday, despite allegations that it discriminates in favor of casinos at the expense of bar owners. Babcock dismissed a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act , which since July 1 has banned smoking indoors in public, [...]

US Marine Pfc. John J. Jodka will plead guilty in connection with the April 26 death of Iraqi civilian Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania , according to Jodka's lawyer speaking Friday. The guilty plea, expected to be entered on Thursday, is to charges of assault and obstruction of justice, reduced from the original charges of [...]

Thomas Nash : "The increasing evidence of humanitarian harm from cluster munitions used during the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the latest example of a consistent pattern of civilian suffering documented over the last 40 years. Whether it has been the goverment of Sudan against armed factions in south Sudan, Ethiopian use against [...]

Ted Mayer : "Merck & Co., Inc. is pleased that the District Court of Berlin, Germany, has rejected two VIOXX claims. In the first case, a 60-year old woman from Berlin claimed that VIOXX caused her cardiac arrhythmia. The second case involved the claim of a 61-year-old man from Berlin who sued the company over [...]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday decried any potential action by the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Iran for continuing to enrich uranium past a August 31 deadline imposed by Security Council Resolution 1696 , saying such action would be "illegitimate." UK Ambassador to the UN Emyr Jones Parry reportedly said the full council [...]

The Tunisian government has launched a new campaign against the public wearing of hijabs , the headscarves worn by many Muslim women in the predominantly Islamic state north African state. Police have begun stopping Muslim women wearing the hijab on the street, asking them to remove it, and to sign an affidavit promising to never [...]

Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht won his appeal of an "admonishment" he received in May for allegedly improperly using the power of his office to support the nomination of his friend, Harriet Miers , to the US Supreme Court. A three-judge panel of the Special Court of Review, appointed by the Texas Supreme Court [...]

A lawyer for a Muslim teaching assistant suspended by a British school for refusing to remove her full-face veil (niqab; Wikipedia backgrounder) during class said Friday she planned to appeal a local tribunal's decision to the European Court of Justice . The Kirklees West Yorkshire Council employment tribunal on Thursday rejected discrimination and harassment claims [...]

The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria announced Friday that the release of jailed Syrian writer and activist Michel Kilo , who was set to be released on bail Thursday, has been delayed due to procedural holdups. Kilo was one of ten activists arrested after signing the so-called Beirut-Damascus Declaration of 12 May , [...]

The government of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is amending a civil unions law that was overturned by the federal government earlier this year , ACT Attorney General Simon Corbell said Friday. Corbell told an Australian Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission inquiry into discrimination against people in same-sex relationships that the amendments – such [...]